


Say Goodbye

by noodlerdoodler



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Ending, I gave up on this fic, Karkat Hates The New World, M/M, Post-Canon, depression (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 03:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6549826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlerdoodler/pseuds/noodlerdoodler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Everything he used to know is gone, all the relationships and friendships that he had built seemed to be deleted with the game, and it's so unfair. Everybody else seems so happy and here he is, slipping into misery and self-loathing.</p>
<p>Karkat wants a different ending."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Goodbye

It's not like Karkat hates this place but... He hates this place. 

He likes the new world they created, sure, but he doesn't like what it cost them. Because even though everybody else here seems happy, he's still plagued with nightmares of the game and memories of the friends he was forced to leave behind. Terezi... Nepeta... Sollux... Vriska... Aradia... Hell, even Gamzee. Countless others no but those are the ones that come to mind straightaway. 

People that didn't enter the door straight away, the people that weren't there to push through to the new world, they didn't get to come here. Who knows where they are now? Karkat hasn't seen a trace of anybody they lost and soon enough, they're holding funerals for the people that didn't make it to this world.

Even though nobody is godtier any longer, they still make up banners for the people that are gone, drawing their symbols neatly, before burning them in the middle of can town. The strong smell of burning hangs around for days, choking lungs and making eyes water. It's a hot reminiscent of the people they used to know. Karkat keeps waking up, thinking that everything is on fire, and looking out of the window to discover that everything is still well. Everything is well... He supposes he could say that. He should say that. But it wouldn't be true. This world might be free of suffering and other bullshit but this world still feels entirely wrong. 

Losing people, losing their friends, somehow seems like the game's last elaborate trick. One last jab in the ribs that sends Karkat crumpling to the ground. It's so fucking unfair that they had to leave people behind. And he can't believe how well everybody else seems to take it. 

He doesn't understand how the humans play their ball games on the grass or how people can sit around chatting like nothing ever happened or how people can just move on with their lives. If they are feeling any kind of remorse, they're sure keeping it quiet. Sure, the humans and him and Kanaya mourn the people that they lost, but most people seem to drop the subject after that. Nobody seems to want to talk about what happened, talk about the game, and when Karkst demands people discuss it, everybody either walks away or says nothing. It's actually kind of weird... Shouldn't they talk more about the game? 

Tonight, Karkat wakes up from another nightmare about some other timeline. Since they won the game, a few other timelines seem to have been buried in his memories and keep coming back in flashes. They're like nagging thoughts in the back of his mind, concepts he can't quite grasp during the day, but they haunt him at night. He wakes up sweating, thinking of him and Terezi soaked through with blood, and slides out of bed. He hates these human beds but they haven't found a way to recreate recuperacoons in this new world yet. He doesn't own enough possessions yet to make a decent pile.

He moves to the window, sliding it open to let a breeze in, and catches a snatch of conversation drifting through the wind. He peers outside and sees Dave and Harley, strolling calmly through Can Town as if it weren't the middle of the fucking night. That's another thing- everybody sleeps at night here and wakes during the day, completely backwards. Why? Fuck if Karkat knows. 

More importantly, he can see two of his old friends outside. He hasn't seen Jade in sweeps, not since she turned him away at mention of the game and he caught her with tears in her eyes, making him feel guilty as fuck. She looks no different to how she did when he last saw her- though, her dark hair seems to fall further down her back in looser curls. She's wearing the same long skirt she always wore and probably the same t-shirt- he can't see from here. She's walking with Dave, talking about something mundane, a skirt she'd modelled for Kanaya. 

How is she doing that? How can she talk about skirts when Nepeta and the others don't exist here? Maybe don't exist anywhere anymore? 

Dave replies with one-syllable answers, nodding quietly. 

_Dave._ Karkat's throat clenches. 

Back when they were still playing the game, him and Dave seemed to be growing closer. They had spent an awful lot of time together, in a flushed kind of way, and ended up being a lot more intimate that Karkat ever thought they would. It had been simple ways; like the way that Dave slung his arm around him; or the way that he had fallen asleep on Dave's lap while watching movies. Just before the end of the game, when they'd met up, Dave had rushed to meet him for fucks sake and they'd hugged right there in front of the entire meteor. Karkat flipped John off when he tried to make stupid jokes and stayed with Dave's arm around him. 

Things had been going so well... And then, suddenly, nothing. 

The game ended and with nothing to fight for or about anymore, there was nothing between them.

It wasn't as if Dave had turned away from him completely, they had still talked a lot at first but Dave seemed somehow distant from him. Whenever Karkat talked to him, about the kinds of things they used to talk about, Dave got a crease between his eyebrows and was reduced to non-committal one word answers. He wouldn't meet Karkat's eyes. It was really frustrating to talk to him when he wouldn't help with the conversation; so, eventually, Karkat had stopped trying to get through to Dave. If Dave wasn't going to talk to him, so be it. He didn't _need_ Dave. 

Except he did. He really, really did. Especially when he woke up, yelling for people that no longer existed and timelines that had never really happened, he needed Dave more than ever. He needed Dave to wrap his arms back around him, his cold human body, and tell him that everything was okay now. That everything was going to be okay. He needed Dave to make stupid comments about movies and Dave to tease him about every single thing he said and Dave to hold hands with him when they thought nobody was looking. Because if Dave wasn't around to say and do those things, Karkat felt desperately lonely. 

Now, he watches as Dave and Harley walk together. They've been acting close since the game, pushing Karkat into the background without even realising it, and they keep doing this... Human flirting. That's what Karkat thinks it is at least. The way they seem to walk so close that they bump hips and how they seem to spend so much time together and how they seem to constantly have something to talk about. Karkat would give anything to be able to hold a steady conversation with Dave now. Anything. His left arm, his dignity (at least what's left of it), his very few possessions. Sometimes, he even wishes they hadn't won the game, because everything seemed to fall apart after the game ended. Everybody fell apart.

Everybody keeps to their small groups now: Dave, Jade and John spend time together, Rose and Kanaya, Roxy and Jane and Dirk and Jake, Karkat on his own. Nobody else made it through the doorway in time. 

As Dave and Harley's voices fade into the background, disappearing down the street, Karkat can feel his bloodpusher pulsing heavily in his chest. He wants to yell and run after them, chase them down and demand they talk to him. They must know something is weird about this universe- it's not hard to sense. He doesn't move from his spot by the window.

The thin film of sweat that had formed on Karkat's skin has dried cold and sticky. His hair is stuck to his forehead, so he pushes it back and closes the window again. Karkat slides down against the wall, landing with a thump on his ass, and stares blankly at his knees. He honestly doesn't understand what went wrong. 

The game ending... Seemed to change everything in his life. Every single aspect of his life seemed to shift but he hadn't shifted with it. It was like... In a good romcom, when one person moves on from a bad relationship but the other person hangs on to it because they don't have anything else. That's the relationship that Karkat has with his old life. Because life on Alternia was difficult, life during Sgrub was painful, but nothing was as hard to deal with as this. Nothing was as hard as having to pull himself out of bed everyday and just try to live what he has left of his life. He pulls his knees close to his chest so that he can press his face into them. 

Dave hasn't mentioned the game to him, not once, nor to anybody else as far as Karkat knows. Because, like everybody else, he seems happy enough just to have made it out alive. The last time they spoke, he said so himself, and the words stung. Karkat wanted to scream about the people that hadn't made it out but he couldn't find the words, just nodding along dumbly. He pretends things are okay- he wonders how many other people do. He suddenly doesn't feel he knows anybody anymore. 

The game had changed a lot of things but nothing had changed more than the players. 

Although, Kanaya and Rose seem perfectly content with their pretty little lives in a house across town. They spend the days together, drinking tea in the eternal summer and taking long walks through the town, sewing clothes and reading books, acting like the perfect couple they've always been. Karkat spends one afternoon a week with Kanaya, drinking flowery tea and listening to her talk about whatever she wants to talk about. Because that's what good moirailling is, right? 

He doesn't talk to her about how bad he's been feeling lately, constantly in a state of regret and misery, wondering what would have happened if the game had ended differently. None of the timelines he remember seem to have him surviving but maybe there's a reason for that. This is the only timeline he survives in and he's incredibly unhappy in it. He wonders if there's something wrong with him, day after day, because everybody else seems so happy. And whilst at first, he's just sad about the people they left behind, the sadness seems to dip dramatically and he finds himself crying over Terezi late one night. Fucking Terezi. 

She was meant to come through the doorway with them but when Karkat got through the door, he found that she hadn't followed. Terezi had vanished and before he knew it, the door was closed and that was it, she was banished from their universe. _Terezi..._ What happened to her? Did she simply stop existing when the door closed? Or is she still fighting the battle against Lord English with everybody else in the other world? Terezi had looked concerned about something before the game ended, oddly quiet, but Karkat hadn't bothered to ask what was wrong. He was more concerned with greeting everybody- especially Dave. 

Is this the price he pays for not talking to Terezi? Did she know something that would fix this universe that Karkat now feels trapped in? 

Kanaya seems to notice something is wrong with him during their weekly meet-ups, constantly asking if he's okay, but he fends her off and tells her that he's fine. He tells her he's just feeling a little under the weather because she seems happy and he doesn't want to drag her down. Because if he's miserable and everybody else is happy, he shouldn't intentionally shatter their illusion. He doesn't want anybody else to feel like he does. 

Maybe he really is sick, anyway, because it's not like he's been doing very well lately. He struggles to sleep, due to his usual insomnia, but he can't bring himself to do anything useful with the time. He just lies awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, and thinks. Thinking turns out to be the deadliest poison of all- filling his mind with "what if?"s and "my fault"s. When he does sleep, he has hazy nightmares from lives that he never had to live in this timeline. And in the mornings, dragging himself out of bed has become a task. He just wants to stay there, curled up under the covers, and go back to sleep. He wants to sleep everything away.

It's near enough to morning now that there's no point in trying to get back to bed. He lifts his head, pushes himself to his feet, and heads downstairs to make himself some breakfast. Karkat isn't hungry but he knows that he should probably eat. It's been a while since he last ate. As he pours himself some human cereal, he wonders what Dave and Jade are doing out this early in the morning. And a familiar emotion, one he hasn't really felt in a while, swells in his chest: jealously. He wishes that Dave wanted to spend that time with him. Dave used to spend that much time with him, back on the meteor. 

After the final fight, Dave had been so happy to see him....

_"I'm so glad you're alive!" He'd flung his arms around Karkat, cool façade completely shattered._

Karkat had been horns over heels for him. He thought Dave reciprocated his feelings but maybe he was wrong? Dave didn't seem interested in him anymore. If anything, he seems embarrassed and awkward around Karkat, like he'd rather forget he existed. Why is that? Karkat doesn't know. But the more he thinks about it, the more he slips into loathing himself the way he used to. He should just hate-marry himself, he thinks miserably, and doesn't laugh at it like he usually does. He can't even crack a smile. 

He spoons his cereal into his mouth, wishing he could go back in time. Unfortunately, everybody lost their godtier powers when they entered this new universe; so even if he could convince Dave that they should go back, that this can't be the end, they wouldn't be able to. Still... Karkat can't shift the feeling that this ending is entirely wrong. This isn't how his story was meant to end, he's sure of it. Is it because they broke the game? Is that why they don't get the true ending that they deserve? Did he do something wrong? Is that why he's the only person that seems to hate living here in this fake game-made utopia? 

After breakfast, he cracks open his husktop and flicks through his Pesterchum. When they'd entered this new universe, all the old logs he had saved disappeared from existence too. Now, all the good times he had, all the memos and chat logs- it's as if they never existed. None of his pictures remain either, none of the pictures Dave took of them that he uploaded to his husktop and saved, swearing to never lose them. The one picture that Karkat did have, stuffed in his back pocket just in case something like this happened, he ripped up as soon as Dave told him that he couldn't hang out one afternoon. _Because it's not fair, damnit._

Everything he used to know is gone, all the relationships and friendships that he had built seemed to be deleted with the game, and it's so unfair. Everybody else seems so happy and here he is, slipping into misery and self-loathing. 

Karkat wants a different ending.


End file.
